# New Grant - Justin Goldston, PhD

**URL:** <https://discourse.uma.xyz/t/new-grant-justin-goldston-phd/1863>\
**Category:** Grant Programme\
**Created:** [December 10, 2022, 3:55am UTC](https://discourse.uma.xyz/t/new-grant-justin-goldston-phd/1863 "2022-12-10T03:55:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Clayton](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.uma.xyz/clayton/32/447_2.png) [@Clayton](https://discourse.uma.xyz/u/Clayton)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://discourse.uma.xyz/t/new-grant-justin-goldston-phd/1863/2 "2022-12-11T13:36:24Z")

</div>

It’s like you knew exactly what I wanted for Christmas!

> there are only two academic studies that mention optimistic oracles and hope that this research study fills that gap while also highlighting the UMA ecosystem.

Could you provide a quick summary? Are they relevant?

I’m curious what your _thesis_ will be, other than with the goal of raising awareness. Is it the general thesis that OO’s are important? I think that’s valuable, for sure.

And perhaps this would go too deep, too fast, but I think that the actual _product_ of UMA needs some R&D around its dispute process. We have had a number of disputes that arise due to ambiguity around natural language. Users of the Polymarket have walked away dissatisfied with the opacity and seeming arbitrariness of resolutions in cases where there is ambiguity.

Why is this happening? And what framework could you propose, after researching historical disputes, as well as related research in crowd wisdom and prediction markets, to help users predict exactly how a case with revealed ambiguity would resolve?

Another valuable insight would be to answer the question: Is the $UMA token distribution hurting the _effectiveness_ of the oracle? If so, what do you propose?

I think a great next step might be for us to do a community AMA on this, where you could talk about what you’re interested in working on here and what the community thinks. My [DMs are open on Twitter](https://twitter.com/TokenArchitect) if you’re willing to arrange such an event!

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.uma.xyz/t/new-grant-justin-goldston-phd/1863)._